Autoclave cure simulation of composite structures applying implicit and explicit FE techniques

Simulation of the autoclave manufacturing technique of composites can yield a preliminary estimation of induced residual thermal stresses and deformations that affect component fatigue life, and required tolerances for assembly. In this paper, an approach is proposed to simulate the autoclave manufacturing technique for unidirectional composites. The proposed approach consists of three modules. The first module is a thermo-chemical model to estimate the temperature and the degree of cure distributions in the composite part during the cure cycle. The second and third modules are a sequential stress analysis using FE-implicit and FE-explicit respectively. User-material subroutine is used to model the viscoelastic properties of the material based on theory of micromechanics.